Down below there was a noise of nut crackers, and a fat squirrel voice and a thin squirrel voice were singing together--
Down below there was a noise of cracking nuts and nibbling; and then the fat squirrel voice and the thin squirrel voice sang--
At this exposure of his hypocrisy, the Sportsman was so overcome with shame and remorse that he would not strike the Squirrel, but pointing it out to his dog, walked thoughtfully away.
At that moment the Squirrels stopped from exhaustion, and looking up at its enemy, said:
Vainly Daylight staggered and stumbled and fell and crept through the snow that was wet with thaw, or across it when the night's frost still crusted it beyond the weight of a man, searching for one more
squirrel, striving to achieve one more transmutation of furry leap and scolding chatter into the lifts and tugs of a man's body that would hoist the boat over the rim of shore-ice and slide it down into the stream.
His desire to kill strengthened with the days, and he cherished hungry ambitions for the
squirrel that chattered so volubly and always informed all wild creatures that the wolf-cub was approaching.
No trace, however, of the
squirrel could be discovered.
The
squirrel, immediately upon rec- ognizing danger, had taken to his legs without ado.
Listen to those
squirrels, will you, chattering over yonder.
Then look out for woodchucks, if it is an exposed place, for they will nibble off the earliest tender leaves almost clean as they go; and again, when the young tendrils make their appearance, they have notice of it, and will shear them off with both buds and young pods, sitting erect like a
squirrel. But above all harvest as early as possible, if you would escape frosts and have a fair and salable crop; you may save much loss by this means.
"If this is goin' to be our place, they'll be no shootin' of tree
squirrels," Billy said.
Pinocchio ran to him and scurrying like a
squirrel up the long black beard, he gave Fire Eater a loving kiss on the tip of his nose.
And on the trunk of the tree he leaned against, a brown
squirrel was clinging and watching him, and from behind a bush nearby a cock pheasant was delicately stretching his neck to peep out, and quite near him were two rabbits sitting up and sniffing with tremulous noses--and actually it appeared as if they were all drawing near to watch him and listen to the strange low little call his pipe seemed to make.
The other boys of the countryside, most of them sons of laborers on the Bentley farms, had guns with which they went hunting rabbits and
squirrels, but David did not go with them.
Look at the family of
squirrels; here we have the finest gradation from animals with their tails only slightly flattened, and from others, as Sir J.
